How the women behind the Preserve Alleppey Society archived memories of Kerala’s seaside town

Discover the rich history of Alappuzha in the meticulously researched coffee table book, The Alleppey Story, available for ₹2500.

As one flips through the coffee table book, The Alleppey Story, the realisation dawns that the network of canals and coir does not even begin to sum up the significance of this town by the sea.

The impressive 272 page book of breath-taking photographs is peppered with information on how this town by the sea came to be, and its historical significance. Brought out by the Preserve Alleppey Society, and compiled by Kochi-based Thought Factory Design, it has inputs in the form of memories tangible and intangible, as photographs and stories.

This book is the labour of love of a group of women, members of the Lion Ladies Club, who got together in 2001, calling themselves the Preserve Alleppey Society (PAS). Driven by a desire to preserve aspects of the town before it succumbed to development, they started with heritage walks around the town for tourists, introducing them to the history of the town.   

Through the book one learns that Alappuzha is a town of many firsts, including being Kerala’s first planned town. It also had the first public post office in Kerala, Kerala’s first school and the oldest lighthouse on India’s west coast. This port town, built before Mumbai and Kolkata, features man-made waterways that existed more than a 100 years before the Suez Canal. 

Since the town was not ‘economically vibrant’ at the time, the older buildings remained as did their stories. Thanks to tie-ups with tour operators, tourists who came for the houseboats and the backwaters came into town and were taken on these walking tours. Through their ‘Alleppey on Foot’ PAS took tourists on heritage walks, showing tourists heritage buildings by the canals. The members of the club volunteered as guides, sometimes hosting lunches and snacks for the tourists at their homes.     

Although the women were familiar with Alappuzha’s history, they did their research beforehand; resource people included local historian Kalleli Raghavan Pillai. 

“Alappuzha is a unique town, with several old buildings, canals and coir factories. But there is more to it like the fact that it is modern India’s oldest, planned port town built, not by colonisers, but by the Travancore kingdom,” says Rani John, who was secretary of Lion Ladies Club then and one of the founding members of PAS.